


Pointe

by LadyOfTheOldWorld



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, F/M, Genderswapped Dance Roles, Juuzou as Odette/the White Swan, Karren as Prince Siedgfried, M/M, Mutsuki as Odille/the Black Swan, Swan Lake - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 16:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOfTheOldWorld/pseuds/LadyOfTheOldWorld
Summary: Swan Lakewould be where they chose if ballet was what they wanted to devote their lives to.





	Pointe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hamliet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hamliet/gifts).



> Focuses mainly on the occupants of the three lead roles – Juuzou, Mucchan, and Karren – but will also have appearances by other characters. Any/All relationships are background only. Probably a three-shot. I did a lot of research for this, so I hope it shows. I don't have any kind of ballpark for when the rest will come out, just that it _will_. Based on a dream I had, and conversations with Hamliet. Just like everything I write these days XD

Shinohara had bought him his first pair of pointe shoes.

While there was a great deal of work that Juuzou himself hat put into tailoring the shoes to his feet, the fact that his adoptive father had bought the pair as a gift meant more to him than he knew how to express. So, he expressed it the only way he knew how – by practicing, by dancing, by working for hours, harder than he’d even worked go gain Mama’s favor. Some dancers liked softer shoes, some preferred ones that would last longer, some had different pairs of shoes for different dances, different dances, different classes. Juuzou preferred ones with as much support as possible. Since he couldn’t feel pain, it didn’t matter to him how soft or hard his shoes were; if they didn’t support him well enough, then he’d prepared them wrong, or the pair had been faultily made. Over the last few years, he’d come into contact with a few less than well-made pairs of pointe shoes, and ended up injured as a result. To prevent future injuries, he did more than most when it came to caring for his feet.

As most dancers did, he taped around each of his toes to avoid blisters. After spraining his left ankle quite severely, he sewed tighter elastic into that pointe shoe. Even when not in class, when he was stationary for any period of time, Juuzou could be found absentmindedly performing strengthening exercises to keep the intrinsic muscles in his feet strong. While his inability to feel pain made it not matter if his pointe shoes were soft or not, it meant that also he had to always be aware of his feet. For example, the aforementioned severe sprain had been caused by a momentary lapse in his spatial awareness, and within the next he had been on the floor with his foot bruising and attempting to swell out of his pointe shoe. It had been both a humiliating and humbling experience, and it had made sure that Juuzou took care of his feet more obsessively than most other dancers. That incident had also been what led him to realize that he needed very supportive and structurally-sound shoes.

For a new pair of pointe shoes, he would first break the shank, and pull it away from the shoe. After slipping on the shoe, he would arch his foot into pointe position and mark where his arch was so that he could slice it with a box cutter and remove the furthest back part of the shank. Pulling the back portion of the shoe inside out, he would then pour glue in between the shank and the sole, starting at the mark he had made to cut away the back portion. It would add strength and support in the places that he needed them most, which was something that he made sure to do for each pair of his shoes. Using more of the glue, he would then harden the toes of the shoes and the outside arches. Once the glue had dried, Juuzou would put on the shoes so that he could make marks on where he would need to take in bits of the satin, to give the cleanest lines without any excess fabric. Lastly, he would sew on the elastics and ribbons, as well as cut off the satin on the tip of the toe and sew around it to give him as much stability as he could. It all took about an hour per pair, less if he were just performing maintenance.

However, despite the years between when he had started dancing and the present, he still had the original pair of pointe shoes that Shinohara had bought him. They were worn, and so he never wore then outside of the house, but they remained sturdy even after all these years. Whenever Juuzou wanted to just dance, not specifically practice – in the basement that had been converted to a practice studio – he would put on that old pair of shoes with their crooked stitches, frayed ribbons, and often-replaced elastics. While he knew, realistically speaking, that someday he would end up having to get rid of the old shoes, he didn’t honestly want to think about it. Of course, knowing Juuzou, that not wanting to think about it would probably end up with him wearing out the shoes completely… or injuring himself again. In the future, he would decide if it was something he wanted to devote his life to. For now, _Swan Lake_ was where he directed his energy. For now, he was the White Swan, dancing opposite Karren von Rosewald as Siegfried and Mucchan as the Black Swan.

For now, he was doing what he loved, and that was all that really mattered to him.


End file.
